


Rewind

by Viridian5



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drama, Episode Related, Grief/Mourning, M/M, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-12-09
Updated: 1999-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's left for those who were left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Rm w/a Vu," "I Will Remember You," and "Hero."
> 
> I was a wreck all day after _that_ Tuesday night. I couldn't write this until I found some emotional distance. I'm hoping the next episode, "Parting Gifts," won't be awful...
> 
> Thanks to LaTonya for a read-through.

"Is that it? Am I done?" Doyle asked on the tape. Angel rewound it again, starting at the beginning of Cordelia's attempt to make a commercial for Angel Investigations. Doyle looked twitchy and uncomfortable, nervous at being on camera, but his earnestness made it sweet. How could Cordelia have possibly told him he came off as a weasel?

Angel smiled a little, like he had every other time he'd watched the tape, as Doyle spoke of their "low rats," then protested that "rats" was what it said. Yesterday Doyle had been so alive while attempting to read Cordelia's script; today they didn't even have a body to bury. Angel had watched him burn, his flesh seared away in layers until nothing remained as he disarmed the weapon, saving everyone. Watched him become a rapidly diminishing shadow against the blinding white light...

Angel's hand clenched on the remote, bending the plastic a bit. //It should have been me. I've had over two hundred years; I've done things I _should_ burn for. He was so young... I love him.//

Doyle had taken that decision out of his hands. He remembered the feel of Doyle's thin shoulder in his grip, that choked voice, the way those intense eyes had burned their love into him. //I was making my goodbye to him. He made it his to me.// He remembered the force of Doyle's fist hitting him and knocking him off the catwalk, making sure he couldn't sacrifice himself. He hadn't been able to get his head together again in time...

"Is that it? Am I done?"

//No. Not until I say so.// Angel rewound it again.

"You're going to wear that tape out. Good thing for you I thought ahead and made copies. You're looking at one right now," Cordelia said from behind him. He stared up at her. She had her usual tone, but her eyes looked a bit haunted. "Hey, is it my fault you're so predictable in your moping? I think not."

Angel put the tape on Pause. "I think I have a right to mope, as you call it. He's dead because of me."

"Oh, please. How do you figure that? He made sure you couldn't stop him."

"The Powers That Be brought him in to be my partner. If not for me, he'd be--"

"--out there getting his life threatened by someone he owed money to."

"All right, yes, but with me he had that _plus_ other supernatural enemies to deal with."

"Well, I can't argue with that."

"Besides, maybe he'd still be alive if I hadn't asked the Oracles to rewind that day for me. With me mortal and out of the running as Warrior, he would have been out for Messenger too." Then Angel put his hand to his head. "No, wait, he had a vision even after I wasn't their Warrior anymore."

"Do you need more time to come up with better reasons to feel guilty?"

The tape turned itself off, leaving a beer commercial in its place. Angel turned the volume down and set the remote aside. "All right, how about this: I don't think he would have done this if I hadn't told him about that day. He was so damned impressed with my self-sacrifice and called me a real hero. And I soaked it up, on fire with some stupid kind of arrogant martyrdom."

"You sure about that? Low-key guy you are, I think the only thing I've ever seen you on fire with is, well, fire. You even mope low-key."

"Cordelia..." Angel couldn't be sure if she was baiting him to cheer him up or if she was just being uber-Cordelia because she couldn't help it. Or if she was maybe dealing with grief in her own way. "He started to put himself down, saying he could never do something like what I did, and I told him that when the moment came he'd know it and be able to do it. And he was dead later that night. Death by heroism."

"He loved you," Cordelia said, and Angel stared at her in surprise. "What, being beautiful means I have to be blind and dumb too? He loved me too, but you two... Sometimes you two would _gaze_ at one another so hard I felt like I wouldn't be able to walk between you. Then there were the time you'd be alone together, and he'd come back afterward all flushed, mussed, and distracted. No nooky, but I know there was petting going on."

"Then why'd you agree to go out with him?"

"Your curse meant he couldn't exactly be unfaithful. Besides, that way he got all that romance novel style-love with you, so he'd be fine for something saner with me."

"Something saner?"

"I've seen all that 'grand passion' stuff you go for, and it looks really painful. It didn't look like much fun for Buffy or Doyle either--"

"Have you ever thought about becoming a grief counselor? Don't."

"Whatever." Cordelia sat down on the couch next to him. "Sad as it is, especially for me, we're kind of all any of us have right now. I mean, the only other person in my life right now besides you and Doyle is Dennis, and he's my dead roommate. He moves things around and turns the TV on, but he's not exactly much good at conversation."

"Cordelia, you're still talking about Doyle in the present sense." And it hurt to think that she was wrong to.

"I'm entitled, okay!" She closed her eyes. "I still keep thinking he's going to walk in any moment and try to get us to go out drinking with him. Any minute now. He'll make a pass at me; I'll insult him; everything will be the way it should be..." Cordelia took a deep breath. "Anyway, a threesome like that would... _have_ been okay. I mean, we were all attached at the hip anyway."

"We don't ever appreciate the time we had."

"Thank you, Mr. Hallmark."

"I feel so guilty."

"Of course you do."

"I didn't appreciate him enough while I had him. During my day as a mortal I was so wrapped up in myself and having Buffy that I ignored him almost completely."

"Wait a minute, are you feeling guilty for something that didn't even happen to him after all because the Oracles turned back time? You really are something special."

"The point is that I can never make it up to him." Angel turned the tape back on and the volume up.

"I know what you mean." Cordelia looked down. "What are you going to do now?"

On the tape, Doyle spoke of heroes. "I don't know," Angel said.

  

### End


End file.
